Space monsters

[Baron Munchausen]

Yes, space monsters were part of the original planned features for SE IV. It's just that the basic game has proven many times more difficult to program than expected. Those original plans were very ambitious! I hope they will implement space monsters at some time in the future.

It would be great to have a "ruins" world that is really a trap: You land and your colonists unleash a 'planet eater' like the Doomsday Machine in Star Trek! First thing is does is EAT the planet just colonized, of course. Then it goes around smashing planets into asteroids and digesting them. It should be baseship sized with unique techs that make it damn hard to destroy. 'Neutronium' armor should be immune to even shard cannons, for example.

There could also be a "guardian" type monster like the MOO Guardian of Orion to protect any 'artifact' ringworld or sphereworld so that whoever finds it can't colonize it immediately, for example. (Yeah, this needs the ability to have a ringworld or sphereworld as an 'artifact' in the game map... )

Lots of other 'random event' monsters are possible. They could be helpful in the same way that these and the Antareans were in MOO II. Even if you were "safely isolated" from other players and happily building up your empire you had better have some armed ships to deal with the occasional random attack. This helps 'level the playing field' and reduce the advantage of someone accidently getting put in a nicely isolated position while everyone else has to fight for space early on.

[Urendi Maleldil]

Heck; That way you could even add in space pirates.

[Suicide Junkie]

Then, you could have a 'robin hood' effect.

'Pirates have raided planet X, taking 10% of our mineral Stores!'

'One of our ships has apprehended some pirates with a surprising amound of minerals aboard. We have confiscated it for the empire'

The bigger empires lose more to pirates, which is then spread randomly to everybody.

[Possum]

S_J, hey cool idea!

One idea that occurred to me in a whimsical (i.e. heavily sedated) moment would take no changes to the game, just a house rule.

"Helvetians In Space" - One player would play the Space Swiss. The Swiss player would suffer the same limits as a Neutral, in that he could never leave his home system(s). In exchange, ALL human players would agree never to attack the Swiss player. The AI players would be the Swiss' own problem. This would allow the Swiss player to act as a broker, buying, selling, and trading any imaginable assets from resources to ships and/or technology.

But I like the Space Monsters idea better. Sigh, all those old Star Trek episodes, how would they translate to random events in SE4

"Your flagship has been given a new destination halfway across the flipping galaxy, because your first officer is in heat"

"Your flagship loses all movement for the turn and is detained in orbit around this planet, while the captain makes love to some sleazy green-skinned wench with pointy teeth"

And I cannot even *begin* to imagine how to translate "The Trouble with Tribbles"...

[Talenn]

A lot of neat ideas here, but please, PLEASE if any of this is implemented allow it to be turned off for competitive games.

Nothing ruins an all night hot seat game like someone's empire being crippled by some 'random' critter. I cant even count the number of times that happenend in MOO...game is going along great...all player competitive and having fun...and then...bam! INCOMING! And one player is forced to divert resources and ships to this random event, barely beats it, and is summarily scrubbed from the game. No thanks.

Just my $.02 on Random Screwings..

Talenn

[Emperor Zodd]

I agree Talenn.

[Suicide Junkie]

The Pirates would help to keep the game balanced, as they are equally likely to take from large players as small players.

The first place player might lose 10% of his 100,000 minerals, while the Last place player loses 10% of his 10000 minerals.

Net effect: 1st place has 91K minerals, and Last place has 19K minerals.

The weaker players might even support the pirates somehow.